Sports Betting Tips

Ashley: I'm a player and you’re watching Players Network and my name is Ashley.

Chet Coppock: Those are the football pre-game shows, why waste your time? We’re the only one dedicated to building your bank roll. So sit back and enjoy. Here comes your Winning Edge.

Michelle Nunes: Hi. I'm Michelle Nunes, Ms. Hooters International 2006 and now to your host Mr. Chet Coppock.

Chet Coppock: He has a consummate wise guy. Let me tell you, he wears that title with as much pride as a pediatrician, a high-end attorney or a chief executive officer. He is Hollis Harvard Barnhart. If you meet this guy in a golf course, and he says, “You know what? Why don’t you and I play up $50.00 and hands off?” And you booked and say, “Fine, I'll play you right handed.” Just keep one thing in mind, Hollis Barnhart is right handed but do snag the bet, he can also swing the club left-handed.

He’s a poker master who is having the great names. Johnny Chen, Doyle Brunson, he’s having games where you have to have $60,000.00 just to go to the table. A foot ball better, he is a guy who understands the back rooms of Las Vegas. He is a consummate wise guy.

Hollis, let’s talk about football from this prospective. The over unders, three-team parlays for example. For the average fan who really thinks he knows what a three-team parlay is all about. You break it down.

Hollis Barnhart: Well let’s break that down. You know it’s a good thing. First of all, let’s talk about what a parlay is. A parlay is a way to link a series of games. So you can do it with like a two-teamer, a three-teamer, and four teams all the way up. The two-teamer pays 13 to 5 for every $50.00, you win a $130.00. A three-teamer pays 6 to 1, so if you bet a $100.00, you’re going to win $600.00 and a very popular one is a four-team parlay, it pays 10 to 1. So you bet a hundred to win a thousand.

But let's break down what actually happens in the dynamics of a parlay. When you bet three-team parlay, and you’re only going to get 6 to 1 on your money, you put up a $100.00 and you win $600.00. However, if you took the same three teams for that same $100.00 bet, you bet game one, it wins, you have $200.00. You roll that over, it wins. You have $400.00. You roll that over, it wins. You now have $800.00 versus $600.00.

So you could bet the same three teams straight and get $800.00 back. You bet the same three teams on a parlay and you get $600.00 plus your $100.00 bet. That’s a 17.5-point turnaround on the percentages of what you win. So you will always make more money betting straight bets.

My recommendation to you is basically, don’t get parlays unless you’re real sure about one game and then try to limit to two-team parlays.

Chet Coppock: Dan Jenkins, brilliant sports writer for years with sports illustrated. Told me once, he thinks the stupidest bet in the world is the teaser. You agree or disagree?

Harvard Barnhart: Well there again, let’s talk about what teasers are. Again, you want to link the series of games and adjust the line. Now first of all, let me tell you why they call them teasers. A lot of people say you could take a 6-point favorite and you just tease it down to pick them because all they have to do is win straight up. I know on three-team ten-point teasers, and I have found the lot in a research to lot on ten-point teasers to lot like that in them in the NFL. I’ve taken so many ten-point favorites, teased it down to pick them. Not only did they not cover, the underdog won the game is straight up. So I'm a big -- I understand ten-point teasers in the NFL.

Now one of the keys, so let’s talk about six-point teaser. You could bet two teams, three teams, four teams, five teams but we are both still and try to tease two or three teams. And that’s what I would recommend.

On a two-team, six-point teaser is going to pay 10 to 11, where a three-team will repay 16 to 10. On a ten-teamer, which are very popular in the NFL, you’ve bet three teams, you’re like $1.20, that’s 6 to 5. All three teams must cover but you get to adjust the line by ten points. Well in the NFL parity, most games fall between that 20 points. But here’s another thing that a lot of people don’t know, and there are many people that you see running around in the sports books out here in Las Vegas. If you have any type of teaser that has a tie, it’s automatic money back. No action.

So let’s say, the first game that you bet on the four-team teaser, or a three-team teaser, and it loses, a lot of people will throw the ticket away. They might lose the first two games, they throw the ticket away and game four is a tie, no action. You would have gotten all your money back, and a lot of sports books will tell you that. But that’s the way you play the teasers.

Chet Coppock: Give me a history lesson. Why is it called a teaser?

Harvard Barnhart: Well basically because they tease you to take something that looks very hard, like a minus six, or a minus seven-point line and you get to tease it down to where it’s pick them or one. It really teases you because it tells your brain that well all they have to do is win the game.

The other thing is, that a lot of people don’t understand is the improper way to bet a teaser. Like for example, you would never lay at a six point teaser when it’s minus three and half tease it across that middle number of zero, where now you’re going close two and a half. That’s not the proper way to bet a teaser. What you would want to do is basically bet underdogs. I know that I'm a big proponent, I'm betting underdogs.

Anyway, so I like to tease the numbers up. I’d bet you rather take a plus six to a plus 12 or key numbers like if it’s a plus eight, go ahead and take a six-point teaser and get plus 14. However, there’s going to be a lot of sports books that on these ties, there’s no action and things like that. Yeah, but I can live with that.

Chet Coppock: Harvard, my pleasure is always my friend. Once again he is Harvard Hollis Barnhart. He is a master of poker. He is the master of football betting. Let’s face it. This guy is what Las Vegas, Nevada is all about.

You know what? Maybe he’s much society is all about, only he is accomplishing his own form of the American Dream. You want to know why? Hollis Harvard Barnhart is now, has been, always will be the guy who beats the system.